


Red Sky

by corbaccio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 19:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14268084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: Jean’s stare did not waver. Armin wondered what he saw, when he looked at him; if it was anything at all like what he saw looking at Jean. He let that thought fill him with sad hope.





	Red Sky

**Author's Note:**

> this is pre-relationship semi-angst on armin's part, but its ending is pretty fluffy (as is standard in my endings, it seems). canon-compliant, set some time after the reclamation of shiganshina and before the current arc. it's fun to imagine the kind of conversations the characters must have had in the downtime. as such, this is kind of of a navel-gazey fic, but i hope someone finds it enjoyable nevertheless!

The air had begun to smell autumnal. A warm, mulchy smell: bonfires, damp earth, a certain crispness that had yet to affect the temperature. Yes, it was humid still. Armin was quite comfortable out on the deck in a flimsy undershirt, his trousers rolled nearly to the knee. His jacket, shirt, and socks were airing over the balustrade, clammy with sweat.

The doors to the dorms were thrown open, though the breeze was hardly enough to cool the room. The nights were—and had been, for the past month—nearly unbearable. The dry heat of midsummer hadn’t been too bad, but this new closeness made sleep a rare and precious thing. Several times Armin had been tempted to sleep out here. But he had a different motive this evening.

Armin had never been a good spy; he could hardly manage subtlety at all, his face an open book. From here, however, he could keep watch and yet was distant enough to go unnoticed. He had fallen into the uncomfortable habit of watching Eren from afar. Voicing his concerns no longer seemed worth the effort, either to Eren himself or the higher-ups. Still, monitoring his friend brought him, and Mikasa, some peace of mind.

Eren was growing yet thinner. At that moment he was emerging from the showers, shirtless, his trousers hanging loose off his frame. His ribs and hipbones were stark, as though they would jut through the skin if he stretched, his arms corded with ropy muscle. His veins stood out in the heat, a proud and prominent blue. Eren’s face was no less handsome but tired, even if Armin thought the weariness suited him somewhat. Perhaps it was just that it made him look older.

Armin felt that the three years had done little to change his appearance. A touch taller, some pounds heavier—but his face remained smooth and boyish, his height diminutive. He used to think that he had made peace with it, but now he made peace with the fact that he likely never would. Rather, Armin allowed it to bother him. The enormity of the war loomed over them, but some things—the high shelf beyond his reach, Mikasa’s assurance and Jean’s gentle teasing—remained the same, rare as they might be.

Everyone showered a lot more in this weather, which made the frequent summer rains a blessing this year. Thus Jean, following soon after Eren, emerged from the wet rooms. By contrast, Jean looked… healthy. His body robust; a warm tan, darker still with the summer months. He had grown into his face, and though Armin had never found him unattractive, age had filled out some of its leanness. He had yet to decide his opinion on the beard.

Eren’s movements drew Armin’s attention once more. He dressed quickly, methodically, as though he had no desire to remain there any longer than necessary. His hair hung in wet ropes, nearly past his shoulders now, but Eren did not bother to dry it. Neither did he notice Armin’s stare (or, if he did, he did not meet it). Eren did not seem to notice many things these days, too often lost in thoughts and memories not his own. Armin and Mikasa could not always draw him out of himself as they could before. The more time went by, the harder it became.

As Eren slipped through the doorway, Armin turned his gaze back to Jean. He startled to find Jean watching him back. The shock of eye contact nearly made him look away, as though embarrassed at having been caught. But then Jean waved, eyebrows raised in wordless greeting, and the feeling—schoolboy-crush shame—dissipated.

He was dressed in civvies. Linen shirt, trousers with scuffed knees and patched pockets. How well he wore these past few years, Armin thought. They were the same age, of course, but Jean looked, well, like a man. At ease in his skin. Some of his childish arrogance had turned into confidence hard-earned through experience.

Jean rubbed a towel through his hair as he came over, letting it hang around his neck.

“Hey,” he said, armed with a cautious smile. “You okay?”

Armin nodded reflexively. This was a question he had gotten used to, its deployment almost constant since he had awoken on the wall of Shiganshina. Its meaning had become less fraught but still it raised Armin’s hackles. Less so, coming from Jean. Armin would wonder why, sometimes, and then immediately stop himself. That way he could at least pretend he didn’t recognise the hot, bristling way Jean made him feel.

“Yes,” Armin said, stupidly, as though the nod was not quite answer enough. He fought the innate urge to look Jean over, and turned out to face the grounds instead. The sun was setting, the sky streaked with red-bellied clouds. The gnats were prolific this summer thanks to the heat and humidity. Swarms of them were picked out by the lowlight. “Bitten to pieces, though.”

Armin swatted absently at his forearm. What he had said wasn’t true: Armin had no bites. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could be bitten—would the gnat be fried by a minute jet of stream if it tried?—but it gave him something to say, something normal. More often than ever now he struggled with conversation if not politicking, or discussing strategy, or his abilities. Downtime like this was so scarce, Armin almost felt out of practice.

He missed it. He _wanted_ it, that normality, so badly sometimes. And Jean... well, being honest, Jean looked at him the same way he always had: his expression gentle rather than pitying, tempered by something like nerves, or perhaps curiosity. Jean did not always agree with him on the best course of action, and Armin liked that. That he could wrong-foot Jean, and be wrong-footed by him. That Jean was unafraid to question his ideas. Sometimes Armin wanted to be proved wrong, and Jean was one of the rare few brave enough to do so.

“Oh, I didn’t know you could get bit,” Jean said, breezily puncturing Armin’s fib without noticing. He sat beside him on dormitory deck, looking out in the same direction. “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.”

“I think that’s an old wives’ tale,” Armin said.

Jean snorted. “Well, my ma’s an old wife alright… but they tend to have good instincts.” He leant back on his hands, and this time Armin could not help himself—his attention was drawn towards him, to Jean’s lean, engaging face, his long legs unfolded before him. He had the kind of easiness that should have made Armin feel likewise comfortable, but it had the opposite effect in such close quarters. 

“Have you heard from her lately?” Armin asked, drawing his knees up against his chest.

“Ma? She sent me a letter last week, but I only just replied to it yesterday.” Jean grimaced. “I’ve been—we’ve all been so busy lately.”

Armin nodded. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“Hah, I don’t think she _could_ understand not being my highest priority,” Jean said, not without fondness. He paused before he went on. “You know, Eren always used to nag me to reply… He doesn’t so much anymore.”

Armin’s breath caught. He didn’t want to have this conversation; he had it enough with Mikasa, nursing drinks after hours when neither could sleep. The mess hall would be lit only by their candles, two spheres of flickering light coalescing the closer they came together. Eren was almost always the point of their meeting: his unfamiliar manner, his mode of speaking like a stranger, his distance ever-growing. It was exhausting, the endless dissection of moments when Eren seemed to emerge from the darkening cloud that otherwise consumed him. They didn’t speak about it otherwise. Too much like a curse, this monolithic thing they dare not broach in the cold light of day.

Armin gave a dismissive wave. He fought the quaver out of his voice before he spoke. “He’s just busy, like us. He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“Eren? Well, that’s a first,” Jean said, but by now the joke was tired. Even Jean must have thought so: his half-hearted scoff turned into a sigh. “But yeah. You’re right, sorry. I guess I’m just worried, about him. About… you.”

It should not have made Armin’s pulse skip, but it did.

“Me?”

Jean cleared his throat. He said, “Well, yeah. You know, you, Mikasa, with Eren. How you’re holding up.”

“We’re fine,” Armin said, over-quick. He felt his breath too keenly, a swelling bubble in his chest. “We’re holding up as best we can, considering.”

Considering. It was too easy to condense it all that way, the incomprehensible vastness of the war, their shortened life spans, the weight of what they had done and would do. But then, even that would have been easier to swallow if Eren were just—Eren, _their_ Eren. It was this new strangeness (less new now after three years, admittedly, but strange nonetheless) that made it so much harder to bear.

Armin did not know how long it had been, but now he noticed Jean’s stare on him. His narrow, almondine eyes intense—warm, rather than fierce—his brow furrowed just a little. Armin could not bring himself to meet it. 

He felt sheepish when he looked at Jean these days. The dreams were less frequent, the older he became. He no longer had the excuse of teenage hormones, and his mind besides was usually occupied with strategies or Hanji’s orders for the day, the endless background awareness of his own significance. But Armin still had the dreams. Jean’s warm, sturdy grip. His face flushed with arousal, the liquid heat of his mouth, his tongue, his sweat-slick palms. Sometimes they were more domestic but no less intimate: Jean’s ankle nudging his under the table, a brief but intentional touch, his steady gaze suffused with affection.

It made looking at him feel inappropriate, like a trespass. 

“Armin,” Jean said, so deliberately it stopped Armin’s breathing. “I mean it. I do worry. About you.”

 _Don’t be so nice to me_ , Armin thought, in the same beat that it thrilled him.

It was odd. So often in conferences with the senior officers, they discussed things of such incredible significance. The future of the Corps, of the people within the walls and those beyond it, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. An ocean of a future, too large to comprehend beyond the horizon he could see before him. And yet, Jean’s voice—that simple, single sentence, the sweet way he bunched his fingers together—filled Armin with a sense of enormity. It felt more current, more real. In this moment, more important than the war.

“Thank you,” said Armin. He could not bring himself to say anything more complicated. “But I mean it. I’m… I think these circumstances are all something we have had to come to accept, right? There’s no point fretting over what can’t be changed.”

Jean’s stare did not waver. Armin wondered what he saw, when he looked at him; if it was anything at all like what he saw looking at Jean. He let that thought fill him with sad hope. The silence lasted a fraction too long, nearly long enough to mean something in its own right, before Jean spoke.

“Jeez, that sounds like something the Captain would say,” he said. “I hope he’s not been lecturing you lately.”

As much as Armin wanted to grasp back that moment, the quiet weight of it, the potential it had had if only Armin were bold enough, he was grateful for the levity.

“Not at all,” Armin said, “in fact, I think he’s saving himself up for the next influx of new recruits in autumn. The leaves should be turning soon.”

Jean laughed, a bright sound. “Ugh, _rookies_. They have brass balls these days. One cheeky little bastard asked if he could try out a thunder spear last week. During a bleeding drill!”

Armin smiled. “That sounds like something you would have done as a trainee.”

“What! No way. I had some respect for my elders.”

“Maybe so,” Armin said, “but you would have seen it as an ideal chance to show off.”

“Show off!?”

“Or, should I say, an opportunity to make a good impression?” Armin mused, resting his chin on his forearm. “You know, I don’t think I’ve met many cadets who _don’t_ want to impress you.”

Jean’s face filled with abrupt surprise. It was hard to tell in the increasing dark, but he seemed to be blushing. Before Armin could be sure he whipped his head to the side, out to face the trees that bordered the grounds.

“… Well, brown-nosing isn’t going to get them anywhere,” he said, but the gruffness was too put-upon. Armin had seen the way Jean interacted with new recruits, that familiar gentleness beneath the scolding, one born of understanding. Besides, it was true what he said. Jean was a popular topic among the trainees. Armin had even spied some paltry attempts at facial hair among the fresh faces.

A quiet fell between them, this one more comfortable than the last. Jean stretched out his legs, folding them at the ankle. He raised his arm to point out to the borders.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “Some of the leaves are already starting to change over there.”

Indeed, they were. Even this far, in the light of dusk, it was distinct: a few splotches of yellow among the green.

“Already, huh. Time seems to go by so much faster now,” Armin said.

Jean turned sharply to face him. Just as suddenly he dropped his gaze to his lap, like a chastened child. “Sorry.”

Armin blinked in surprise.

“Um… don’t be. It’s not like you’re in control of the seasons.”

Jean gave a funny half-sigh, half-laugh. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, but this time he was smiling as he looked at Armin. It was a strange smile, its fondness unfamiliar. Almost wistful. “Would you go back to being a trainee? As in, not now, but as it was for us?”

Armin considered it. “That’s a hard one. We knew so little back then.”

“So—scared shitless all the time?” Jean said, grinning proper now.

“Hah, I suppose. Though I don’t think that’s changed too much.” Armin smiled, though it was more to himself. They had been difficult times, and nostalgia was a dangerous thing, but it would have been a lie to say he didn’t miss it. “Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Maybe if I had the body that I had now.”

Jean quirked an eyebrow. “Really? I don’t think it would make that much of a difference.” He looked up at the sky, scratching his chin as if in thought. “I think even at fifteen I was taller than you are now—wha, _hey_!”

Armin had lobbed a handful of cut grass at him. He made a show of brazen innocence at Jean’s indignation, holding up his palms. 

“It wasn’t me,” he said coolly.

“I can see grass stuck to your hands, you ass!” Jean said, but he was grinning, grinning still, his expression bright with mischief.

How rare this was. And how fun, how easy it was to be this way with someone. Armin felt briefly invincible, as if he could say something—something he shouldn’t say, that he had convinced himself it was best not to. 

Autumn was already almost upon them. Soon it would be another year. How long did Armin have left now? How precise was the death sentence—should he count weeks, days, hours? It made sense before, to focus only on what was in front of him. The mission, and what his role as the colossal titan entailed in that mission. The older he got, the less priority his emotions took. The quicker time went by. The more rational he became, and the difficult decisions, easier. Yet here, in the waning days of August, surrounded by gnats, the turning trees and the turning sky, was it wrong to be selfish? 

When he let himself, Armin felt the intensity with which he wanted Jean. Not just normality, but the normality that Jean embodied. Letters from his mother, omelettes from backyard hens, the patched hand-me-down civvies he wore. Jean’s humanity was so inviting, like looking in the window of a warm room from the cold outside.

“Why did you cut your hair?” Jean said suddenly. He was looking at him again with that same probing intensity.

“Oh,” Armin said, reaching up to touch the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “I needed the change. It was bothering me.”

Jean’s question had surprised him. Not just its abruptness, but he had cut his hair this short for some months now. In fact, he was only just starting to get used to it himself; waking up, his first moments were always jarring, the absence keener in his bleary confusion. Even now, feeling the short strands under his fingers was strange.

“It was getting really annoying with the hot weather,” he continued, which was true enough. This year was one of the hottest in living memory. 

Jean swallowed. He looked around as if searching for something to say. “And Mikasa? Was it the same reason?”

“No. Since she wears nearly double the gear than the rest of us, Levi recommended it. And she says it's much easier to maneuver without worrying it will...“

Jean shifted his weight, leaning in. His hand came up between them, then closer—Armin felt a stupid rush of excited panic—and brushed against the back of Armin’s neck. Before he had even registered the touch, Jean drew away. He held his hand up in the air. Something was pinched between his thumb and forefinger: a blade of grass. He let the wind carry it away.

Armin had, by now, lost his train of thought.

“It suits you,” Jean said. “I feel like I can see your face better.”

Armin opened his mouth, but he could not think of what to say. Jean watched him for a second, then sprung up from his sitting position with such urgency it was like a torch had been lit under him. In a great flurry of movement he turned away, clearing his throat and brushing off his clothes. 

“It’s getting dark,” Jean said, as he strode through the open door. “Dinner will be served soon.”

Still in a tangle of confusion, Armin scrambled to his feet. His cheeks felt hot. His mind was repeating back on Jean’s hand—that casual, fleeting touch, his prominent knuckles, the skin split from the reins of his horse. He froze there, alone out on the deck. Jean had his back to him, but with the light inside Armin could see better. It gave him some ammunition. 

“Your ears are red,” he said.

Jean spluttered, walking faster. He flung the towel around his shoulders back over his head and made as if he was drying his hair. He said nothing more, and Armin did not follow, but he caught a glimpse of Jean’s face from the side as he turned into the corridor. Eyes trained ahead, but wearing a sheepish, satisfied grin.

It was infectious. Armin sat back on to the deck, his face burning, smiling up at the sky. Inside, dinner, the Survey Corps, the strategies against the rest of the world, they would wait for him. Armin could stand to enjoy this a little longer. Sometimes a victory did not have to be so momentous to be worth savouring.


End file.
